


Most Importantly...

by bitsukki



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: ADHD, Character Study, For Those Who Appreciate Hinata Shouyou, Gen, Idk what else to tag this is, Inner Dialogue, because he deserves it, character develpment, even though it's not explicitly expressed, which should be everyone imo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 12:02:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6115836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitsukki/pseuds/bitsukki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When he was ten he found volleyball. When he was eleven he began learning. When he was 14 he played in a match, and Shouyou finally discovered silence."</p><p>(1k+ words on why Hinata Shouyou loves volleyball)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Most Importantly...

Shouyou loved volleyball.

He loved it for a lot of reasons, but he couldn’t always articulate them when people asked. Usually they asked why he _liked_ it, and that was difficult enough. How was he supposed to explain to people his feelings when they didn’t understand that he didn’t just like it? He couldn’t figure it out, especially since it was hard for him to understand why people _didn’t_ love it, when it was clearly the best thing to ever exist.

He didn’t know how to explain to people that volleyball was something he loved from the bottom of his heart to the ends of his hair, that it was as important as sleep or school or anything else, to people who just wouldn’t _get_ it. In the end, he’d tell them it was because it was fun. Fun he could say, and most people would understand, even if it wasn’t even close to enough.

A boring word like _fun_ would never be enough to explain something that he had grown to feel in his bones.

There was nothing comparable to the sting of his palm after a good spike, or the dull ache in his legs after a match. When his shoulders were so sore after a hard practice that he’d sink all the way down in his bathtub until the warm water washed over them, he couldn’t help but smile to himself.

It hurt. Volleyball hurt. It left him bruised and sore and exhausted to his core, but it was a good kind of hurt. It was satisfying, because hurt mean that he had _played._

He loved it because it let him fly, like he was an actual crow with wind beneath his wings and nothing stopping him. Shouyou was proud of his 163 centimeters ( _If you_ round up _, Kageyama! You have to round!_ ). Sure, he had never gotten a confession from anybody before, and maybe he had had a few nightmares about being squished by people bigger than him, but none of that was important. Not when he could jump.

Shouyou knew that there was an entire world above him that he couldn’t see, an entire point of view that was impossible to him under normal circumstances. It was hard to forget when standing next to people like Tsukishima, knowing that nobody expected him to even compare to the blonde’s 188 centimeters.

Except, on the court, he did more than compare. It wasn’t all him, he knew that and wouldn’t (couldn’t) forget it. But on the court he could fly. In front of a net he could meet the eyes of anybody who would normally tower over him. With his jump, he could level a playing field that was stacked against him, centimeter by centimeter. With the help of his team, he could sometimes even restack it in his favor.

He hadn’t known how great it would be to be a part of a team, a real team, until he was. It wasn’t sudden, wasn’t instantaneous. There had been a lot of hurdles to jump before they could really be called a team. He and Kageyama alone could probably have filled a book with ways to annoy your teammate. But when they clicked Shouyou couldn’t help but feel like he could take on the world.

He loved that they weren’t perfect, weren’t always the tallest or the fastest or the most collected of teams. He wouldn’t change his team for anything, even Tsukishima. He couldn’t help but smile every time Suga ruffled his hair, or Daichi bought them pork buns, or Nishinoya told him that his receives were improving.

He knew what it meant now, to have a team. He knew what it meant to have people who not only supported him, but who wanted to keep playing as much as he did. People who he didn’t have to pester into practicing with him. People who might call him a dumbass, but would try and help him get stronger as well.

There were a lot of things about volleyball that Shouyou loved, a lot of things that made it so important that it was what he dreamt about at night. More than anything though, he loved volleyball because with volleyball came silence.

Shouyou’s entire life had been filled with noise. The world was loud and so he was loud too. He didn’t know how to keep from speaking, even when he sometimes shouldn’t. He didn’t know how to hide his laughter, or his excitement. He yelled when he was frustrated, grumbled when he was nervous, and practically danced at the sound of a volleyball hitting a court’s floor.

More than that though, was the constant buzzing of _stuff_ in his head, always buzzing, always jumping from one thought to another, so quickly that even he couldn’t always understand his train of thought.

The world was full of noise, and so was Shouyou, and that was okay.

Usually.

It was easier to ignore it some days, when everything felt alright and there wasn’t a weight on his shoulders. The world had been loud his entire life, and he had learned how to live with it. It was as normal as walking. Most days he didn’t have to think about it at all.

Some days were harder though. Some days were too loud, and he stumbled more easily. Those were the days where he was frazzled, where he felt like he was going to vibrate right out of his skin, where his teacher’s lessons went in one ear and right back out the other. Those were the days where all he wanted to do was empty out his head until there was nothing left to make even a whisper. When the world was too loud, nothing helped. Those were the days where he was tired.

Despite what people thought, his energy wasn’t endless. It was exhausting when your head constantly felt like a stream of exclamation points, and he had limits, just like any other person. They might be stretched, pushed farther back by his constant desire to _do more one more_ , but they existed. They could be reached, but they rarely were, completely.  

When he was ten he found volleyball. When he was eleven he began learning. When he was 14 he played in a match, and Shouyou finally discovered _silence_.

It wasn’t true silence. It was more like a pause button, allowing him to stop the noises that he didn’t want to hear in a way that he never had before. He could still hear the cheers of his teammates, the smack of the ball against skin, the squeak of shoes on the court. Every time he played there was this… clarity that he didn’t know was even possible until he felt it. It didn’t make much sense to him, but it was amazing as much as it was addicting.

…

…

Shouyou always said that he liked volleyball because it was fun, and he wasn’t lying. It _was_ fun, but it was so much more as well.

 

**Author's Note:**

> hmu @ bitsukki.tumblr.com if u wanna see me crying about volleyball dorks more frequently


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